[arch-general] freetype2 with enabled tt bytecode interpreter, license issues?
Hi, Because it is being a topic of great interest to the licenses of the packages, I question, because I'm not good at anything legal issues: This package with this option enabled, not is problematic in legal terms? http://freetype.sourceforge.net/patents.html Personally in my machine, I recompiled this package without the patch, I prefer the auto-hinting from freetype2, because fonts looks better (at least on CRT), I know that this can be configured with fontconf, but because some programs/libs based on xpdf libs (example poppler*, kpdf), look at headers at compile time instead of using fontconfig I recompile these packages too. Searching in the bug tracker i found this old ticket http://bugs.archlinux.org/task/2033 Citation from ftoption.h: /* Define TT_CONFIG_OPTION_BYTECODE_INTERPRETER if you want to compile */ /* a bytecode interpreter in the TrueType driver. Note that there are */ /* important patent issues related to the use of the interpreter. */ /* */ /* By undefining this, you will only compile the code necessary to load */ /* TrueType glyphs without hinting. */ /* */ /* Do not #undef this macro here, since the build system might */ /* define it for certain configurations only. */ Thanks for your time. -- Gerardo Exequiel Pozzi ( djgera ) http://www.djgera.com.ar KeyID: 0x1B8C330D Key fingerprint = 0CAA D5D4 CD85 4434 A219 76ED 39AB 221B 1B8C 330D
On Montag, 4. Mai 2009 18:17 Gerardo Exequiel Pozzi wrote:
Personally in my machine, I recompiled this package without the patch, I prefer the auto-hinting from freetype2, because fonts looks better (at least on CRT), I know that this can be configured with fontconf, but because some programs/libs based on xpdf libs (example poppler*, kpdf), look at headers at compile time instead of using fontconfig I recompile these packages too.
Nice to see that you prefer auto-hinting as mine. I config this with fontconfig and thought i'm on the safe side but you say that this is not good for kdpf and so on. Do you have background informations about it and what is the list of apps which do you recompile? I suggest that everyone who never used auto-hinting should test to see if this patch is necessary or not. Personally i support to deactivate the patch but i know that fonts be even a very individually piece of choice and prefer a democratic decision. See you, Attila
On Mon, 2009-05-04 at 22:44 +0200, Attila wrote:
On Montag, 4. Mai 2009 18:17 Gerardo Exequiel Pozzi wrote:
Personally in my machine, I recompiled this package without the patch, I prefer the auto-hinting from freetype2, because fonts looks better (at least on CRT), I know that this can be configured with fontconf, but because some programs/libs based on xpdf libs (example poppler*, kpdf), look at headers at compile time instead of using fontconfig I recompile these packages too.
Nice to see that you prefer auto-hinting as mine. I config this with fontconfig and thought i'm on the safe side but you say that this is not good for kdpf and so on. Do you have background informations about it and what is the list of apps which do you recompile?
I suggest that everyone who never used auto-hinting should test to see if this patch is necessary or not. Personally i support to deactivate the patch but i know that fonts be even a very individually piece of choice and prefer a democratic decision.
See you, Attila
Deactivating the patch can be done by fontconfig configuration, so you don't have to recompile freetype at all for this. As for the licensing: AFAIK even Debian ships with the bytecode interpreter enabled these days.
On Montag, 4. Mai 2009 23:06 Jan de Groot wrote:
Deactivating the patch can be done by fontconfig configuration, so you don't have to recompile freetype at all for this.
That's what i have done and i'm satisfied with it but Gerardo speaks about problems with kpdf and poppler when this patch is included. This is why i'm suprised about it and the freetype authors seems to be satisfied with the auto-hinting too.
As for the licensing: AFAIK even Debian ships with the bytecode interpreter enabled these days
The license is not my first intension and i think the most distributions activate the bytecode interpreter. Still again, i only discuss and don't say "we have to do". -) See you, Attila
Attila wrote:
On Montag, 4. Mai 2009 23:06 Jan de Groot wrote:
Deactivating the patch can be done by fontconfig configuration, so you don't have to recompile freetype at all for this.
That's what i have done and i'm satisfied with it but Gerardo speaks about problems with kpdf and poppler when this patch is included. This is why i'm suprised about it and the freetype authors seems to be satisfied with the auto-hinting too.
Currently the only package afected are poppler* (or at least that I use/know). I was talking about kpdf, but this is an old example. In KDE4 Okular uses shared lib poppler, not a private copy. The same applies to Evince (from GNOME) So only poppler* is needed to be recompiled. Sample screenshots, can apreciate the problem: This is a Okular rendering a pdf document with the poppler* from Arch Linux: http://archlinux.djgera.com.ar/screenshoots/okular-bad.png And this is with poppler* recompiled without bytecode freetype patch: ( or simply commenting the apropiate libs in poppler* :) ) http://archlinux.djgera.com.ar/screenshoots/okular-good.png
As for the licensing: AFAIK even Debian ships with the bytecode interpreter enabled these days
The license is not my first intension and i think the most distributions activate the bytecode interpreter.
Still again, i only discuss and don't say "we have to do". -)
Exactly.
See you, Attila
Chau -- Gerardo Exequiel Pozzi ( djgera ) http://www.djgera.com.ar KeyID: 0x1B8C330D Key fingerprint = 0CAA D5D4 CD85 4434 A219 76ED 39AB 221B 1B8C 330D
On Dienstag, 5. Mai 2009 02:00 Gerardo Exequiel Pozzi wrote:
Currently the only package afected are poppler* (or at least that I use/know).
Thanks for this infos.
I was talking about kpdf, but this is an old example. In KDE4 Okular uses shared lib poppler, not a private copy. The same applies to Evince (from GNOME) So only poppler* is needed to be recompiled.
Okay, than i be on the safe side because i still stay with kde3 but with your help i will be warned and know what i have to do, thanks again.
Sample screenshots, can apreciate the problem:
Oh yes, the difference is realy big. See you, Attila
Jan de Groot wrote:
On Mon, 2009-05-04 at 22:44 +0200, Attila wrote:
On Montag, 4. Mai 2009 18:17 Gerardo Exequiel Pozzi wrote:
Personally in my machine, I recompiled this package without the patch, I prefer the auto-hinting from freetype2, because fonts looks better (at least on CRT), I know that this can be configured with fontconf, but because some programs/libs based on xpdf libs (example poppler*, kpdf), look at headers at compile time instead of using fontconfig I recompile these packages too.
Nice to see that you prefer auto-hinting as mine. I config this with fontconfig and thought i'm on the safe side but you say that this is not good for kdpf and so on. Do you have background informations about it and what is the list of apps which do you recompile?
I suggest that everyone who never used auto-hinting should test to see if this patch is necessary or not. Personally i support to deactivate the patch but i know that fonts be even a very individually piece of choice and prefer a democratic decision.
See you, Attila
Deactivating the patch can be done by fontconfig configuration, so you don't have to recompile freetype at all for this.
Yes and no. Yes, for code that uses fontconfig. But in the real world :(, not all code use fontconfig (or at least in all parts), example of this are software that used the mentioned xpdf (splash engine): poppler*, kpdf, ... splash/SplashFTFont.cc: 182 // if we have the FT2 bytecode interpreter, autohinting won't be used 183 #ifdef TT_CONFIG_OPTION_BYTECODE_INTERPRETER 184 if (FT_Load_Glyph(ff->face, gid, 185 aa ? FT_LOAD_NO_BITMAP : FT_LOAD_DEFAULT)) { 186 return gFalse; 187 } ...
As for the licensing: AFAIK even Debian ships with the bytecode interpreter enabled these days.
If Debian GNU/Linux have this, then no issues have with it :) Thanks. -- Gerardo Exequiel Pozzi ( djgera ) http://www.djgera.com.ar KeyID: 0x1B8C330D Key fingerprint = 0CAA D5D4 CD85 4434 A219 76ED 39AB 221B 1B8C 330D
participants (3)
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Attila
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Gerardo Exequiel Pozzi
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Jan de Groot